Libya protested on Wednesday against an American official who joked on leader Moamer Kadhafi's call for jihad against Switzerland. The Libyan foreign ministry called in the US charge d'affaires demanding "explanations and apologies" over the reaction by State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, the official JANA news agency said.

It added that there would be "negative repercussions on economic and political relations between the two countries if no measures are adopted."

Last Thursday, Kadhafi called for holy war over a recent Swiss ban on the construction of minarets.

The following day, Crowley conveyed: "I saw that (jihad) report and it just brought me back to the day of September, one of the more memorable sessions of the UN General Assembly that I can recall. "Lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place and not necessarily a lot of sense," Crowley said.